Hittites

The Hittites enter scripture as a Canaanite people, descended from Heth son of Canaan. They appear at three pressure points in Israel's story: as Abraham's neighbors at Hebron, as one of the seven nations whose land is promised to Israel, and as a residual people whose daughters, kings, and soldiers are absorbed into Israel's life from the judges through Solomon.

The Sons of Heth

Heth is named in the table of nations as a son of Canaan: "And Canaan begot Sidon his firstborn, and Heth" (Gen 10:15), repeated in the chronicler's genealogy at 1 Chr 1:13. From Heth come "the sons of Heth" — the patriarchal-era designation for the people later called Hittites — and they appear in Genesis settled around Hebron.

Machpelah: Abraham and the Sons of Heth

When Sarah dies, Abraham buys his burying-place from this people. He stands and addresses them directly: "And Abraham rose up from before his dead, and spoke to the sons of Heth, saying" (Gen 23:3). The transaction is conducted at the city gate with Ephron the Hittite as principal: "Now Ephron was sitting in the midst of the sons of Heth. And Ephron the Hittite answered Abraham in the audience of the sons of Heth, even of all who went in at the gate of his city" (Gen 23:10). The deed is executed publicly — "the field of Ephron, which was in Machpelah, which was before Mamre, the field, and the cave which was in it, and all the trees that were in the field, that were in all its border round about, were made sure to Abraham for a possession in the presence of the sons of Heth, before all who went in at the gate of his city" (Gen 23:17-18) — and Abraham buries Sarah there, "the field, and the cave that is in it" being "made sure to Abraham for a possession of a burying-place by the sons of Heth" (Gen 23:19-20). Jacob, on his deathbed, points back to this same purchase: "the field and the cave that is in it, which was purchased from the sons of Heth" (Gen 49:32).

Esau's Hittite Wives

Esau marries into this people, and the marriages distress his parents. "And when Esau was forty years old he took as wife Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite" (Gen 26:34). Rebekah's complaint frames the daughters of Heth as the immediate threat to the line of promise: "I am weary of my life because of the daughters of Heth. If Jacob takes a wife of the daughters of Heth, such as these, of the daughters of the land, what good will my life be to me?" (Gen 27:46). The Edomite genealogy lists the same connection: "Esau took his wives of the daughters of Canaan: Adah the daughter of Elon the Hittite, and Oholibamah the daughter of Anah, the daughter of Zibeon the Hivite" (Gen 36:2).

Land of the Hittites

By the time of the exodus, "Hittite" names both a people and a territory. At the burning bush Yahweh promises to bring Israel "to the place of the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Amorite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite" (Ex 3:8). The spies' report fixes them in the hill-country: "Amalek dwells in the land of the South: and the Hittite, and the Jebusite, and the Amorite, dwell in the hill-country; and the Canaanite dwells by the sea, and along by the side of the Jordan" (Num 13:29). Joshua receives a wider boundary still: "From the wilderness, and this Lebanon, even to the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and to the great sea toward the going down of the sun, will be your⁺ border" (Jos 1:4).

The Seven Nations

The Hittite stands first or near-first in the recurring catalogue of nations whom Israel must dispossess. Deuteronomy fixes the list at seven: "the Hittite, and the Girgashite, and the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite, seven nations greater and mightier than you" (Deut 7:1). The same roster reappears at the burning bush (Ex 3:8) and in Joshua's farewell, where Yahweh recalls the conquest at Jericho: "the men of Jericho fought against you⁺, the Amorite, and the Perizzite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Girgashite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite; and I delivered them into your⁺ hand" (Jos 24:11). Before Gibeon, the kings west of the Jordan unite: "the Hittite, and the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite ... gathered themselves together, to fight with Joshua and with Israel, with one accord" (Jos 9:1-2).

A man spared at the fall of Bethel signals that the Hittite territory persists outside Israel's grasp: "And the man went into the land of the Hittites, and built a city, and called its name Luz, which is its name to this day" (Jud 1:26).

Intermarriage and Apostasy

The seven-nation prohibition is not kept. "And the sons of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites, the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites: and they took their daughters to be their wives, and gave their own daughters to their sons and served their gods. And the sons of Israel did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, and forgot Yahweh their God, and served the Baalim and the Asheroth" (Jud 3:5-7). The same charge reappears in Ezra's reform after the return: "The people of Israel, and the priests and the Levites, haven't separated themselves from the peoples of the lands, [doing] according to their disgusting things, even of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites" (Ezr 9:1).

Hittites under David and Solomon

Individual Hittites appear in David's circle. Ahimelech the Hittite is at his side in the wilderness pursuit of Saul: "Then David answered and said to Ahimelech the Hittite, and to Abishai the son of Zeruiah, brother to Joab" (1 Sam 26:6). Uriah the Hittite is the husband whose wife David takes: "Isn't this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?" (2 Sam 11:3). Uriah closes the roster of David's mighty men — "Uriah the Hittite: thirty and seven in all" (2 Sam 23:39).

Under Solomon the surviving Hittite population is conscripted. "As for all the people who were left of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, who were not of the sons of Israel; their sons who were left after them in the land, whom the sons of Israel were not able completely to destroy, of them Solomon raised slave labor to this day" (1 Ki 9:20-21). The chronicler records the same: "As for all the people who were left of the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, who were not of Israel; of their sons who were left after them in the land, whom the sons of Israel did not consume, of them Solomon raised slave labor to this day" (2 Chr 8:7-8). And Solomon's foreign wives include them: "Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, and Hittites" (1 Ki 11:1).

The Kings of the Hittites

The Hittites of the monarchy are not only a subjugated remnant inside Israel; "the kings of the Hittites" exist as an external power Solomon trades with and later kings reckon with. Solomon's chariot trade runs through them: "And a chariot came up and went out of Egypt for six hundred [shekels] of silver, and a horse for a hundred and fifty; and so for all the kings of the Hittites, and for the kings of Syria, they would bring them out by their means" (1 Ki 10:29), repeated in 2 Chr 1:17. In the Aramean siege of Samaria, Yahweh routs the Syrian camp by a sound that suggests the same coalition: "the king of Israel has hired against us the kings of the Hittites, and the kings of the Egyptians, to come upon us" (2 Ki 7:6). The kings of the Hittites stand alongside the kings of Syria and Egypt as a recognised power Israel's enemies fear.